Arctic Wolf Labs Threat Intelligence Teams have observed new malicious activity related to the zero-day vulnerability in Cleo Managed File Transfer (MFT) software disclosed by Huntress.
In December 2024, Arctic Wolf Labs identified a mass exploitation campaign in which attackers used Cleo MFT solutions for unauthorized remote access. The attack chain consisted of an obfuscated PowerShell stager, a Java loader, and a Java-based backdoor that Arctic Wolf dubs "Cleopatra."
The campaign began on December 7, 2024 and is still active. The Cleopatra backdoor enables in-memory file storage, supports Windows and Linux, and provides specific features to access data stored in the Cleo MFT software. It was noticeable that the initial scanning of the vulnerabilities only came from two IP addresses, while many other IPs served as command-and-control (C2) targets.
Cleopatra backdoor steals data
In addition to the information uncovered by Huntress, Arctic Wolf provided additional insights, including a visual timeline of the exploitation clusters, detailed insight into the two IP addresses that initiated all of the observed attacks, and linking known attacker HTTP activity to the malicious PowerShell command and a failed output redirection attempt.
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In addition, Cleo-specific functions within the Cleopatra backdoor were identified that are used for targeted data manipulation. Further analysis provided additional insights into the extension functions of the Cleopatra backdoor, especially in the area of in-memory file storage and its adaptation to different systems.
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About Arctic Wolf
Arctic Wolf is a global leader in security operations, providing the first cloud-native security operations platform to mitigate cyber risk. Based on threat telemetry spanning endpoint, network and cloud sources, the Arctic Wolf® Security Operations Cloud analyzes more than 1,6 trillion security events per week worldwide. It provides company-critical insights into almost all security use cases and optimizes customers' heterogeneous security solutions. The Arctic Wolf platform is used by more than 2.000 customers worldwide. It provides automated threat detection and response, enabling organizations of all sizes to set up world-class security operations at the push of a button.
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